


Out of the cave

by imsfire



Series: Celebrate Rogue One characters 2018 [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Destruction, Family, Gen, Hope, Jyn as seen through someone else's eyes, Jyn-centric, OC POV, Pathfinders at work, Rescue, Sadness, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, memories of Jyn's cave, she's Jyn Erso-Andor, so although Cassian isn't present in this story he is certainly around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: A small village on a mining colony has been burned to the ground in an Imperial reprisal; the survivors are found by an Alliance sergeant.





	Out of the cave

**Author's Note:**

> For day five of "Celebrate Rogue One"; theme, Jyn + Lost/found.  
> Rated "teen and up" for references to murder of civilians.  
> Posting very late because I don't have regular internet acess at the moment!

“How many of you are there?” said a quiet voice.

Everyone in the cave jerked and stared, like baby womp-rats hearing the scrabble of bigger claws; alert and panicked, blindly ready to fight.  The voice came from above, and it wasn’t anyone Coelo knew.  He looked up.

Someone had opened the hatch.  There was a figure hanging above them, the last dim daylight filtering round a silhouette.  Someone small and bundled up, with a goggled helmet perched on their head, and raggedy loose hair coming out from under it.

Papa still had the butcher knife he’d snatched when they ran, and he raised it now, looking up at the vague light and the stranger.  No-one in the cave had brought a torch.  The reflected light from the hatch winked on the big blade when his hand shook.  But his face was tight with determination as he stood up.

“Oh, hells,” said the person up above. “I didn’t mean to spook you.  I’m sorry.  You poor bastards.”

Coelo scrambled up to stand beside his father.  If Papa was going to have to go hand-to-hand with one of their attackers, he’d fight alongside.  He was old enough to do that.  Drive this one back, give some of the others a chance to get out.  They’d been found; their one hope of refuge, a trap.

But the figure didn’t look like a ‘trooper, or an Imperial officer.  That untidy hair surely wasn’t…

“Who are you?  How did you find us?” Papa sounded hoarse and angry, and ready.

The stranger had a low voice, blunt and rather boyish in tone, but feminine.  “I’m with the rebels.  You’re safe now.  And – let’s just say, I’ve seen one of these before.  How many of you are there?”

“Rebels?” Coelo asked.  Did she mean the Starbirds?  Excitement lifted its head inside him, a small bright flower in the dark. “Have you come to save our village?”

There was a momentary silence before the woman said “You don’t want to go back to the village.  Not – not much left there.  I’m sorry.  But we’ve got a ship, we can get you out of here.”

“We?” A frightened voice from further down the cave, in the dark. “Who’s _we_ – why should we trust you?  You say rebels but who-?“

The woman held up both hands, weaponless, pacificatory. “ _We_ is me and my team.  They’ve gone down to - check the damage.  Look for other survivors.  We saw signs of people having run this way so I came up to look.” She lowered her hands again and gripped the edge of the hatch, then swung herself in and scrambled down to their level.  “I’m Sergeant Erso-Andor.  Rebel Alliance.  I’m with SpecForces.”

She wasn’t much taller than Coelo, and pretty, and there was ash on her gloves and in her hair.  Papa set down the big knife slowly. 

“How many of you down here?” she asked again.

“Eighteen, I think,” Papa said. “Half of them are children.”

“Okay.” Sgt Erso-Andor had a calm face.  She looked around at the huddle of frightened faces. “Okay.  I’m afraid your homes have been destroyed.  But you did the right thing, hiding like this.”

She looked kind, Coelo thought.  Tired, and rather worn-down by life, like the Mayor Mrs Ainta did after the big conference last year finished without good news; tired but kind.  He trusted her eyes.

“Where will you take us?” he asked.  She sighed.

“Depends.  Another settlement here on Deimaak, if you like.  Or off-planet.  Not that I recommend life as refugees.  But the Imperial occupation isn’t going to be easy either, not on a mining world like this.”  Her smile was quick and oddly sad. “For now, let’s get you out of here and on-board Pathfinder 6.  See if my colleagues have found anyone else.  Get you all some food and water, a medic if anyone needs one.  We can sort the rest out later.”

It took a while for everyone for everyone to climb back up the rickety ladder into the open space of the upper cavern.  The smaller kids had to be helped, and Gamina with her bad leg, and stout Hielo.  The babies had to be passed like buckets in a chain, grizzling and hiccoughing at the unnatural movement, the unsteady hands holding them.

Papa and the Sgt stood guard until everyone was out and then Papa and Coelo led them back down the hill.  Billows of black smoke were rising from the wooded combe.  There should have been rooftops visible by now among the trees.  Coelo’s stomach felt grim, right to the very pit.

But quiet, quick-moving figures dressed like the Sgt were coming up the slope, escorting a dozen filthy exhausted people.  He recognised Cargio the herdsman, still carrying his quarterstaff, and Mr Shamoult from school; Derrey’s mother, and Mrs Ainta.  And –

“Mama!” Coelo started to run.

He didn’t care anymore if he looked brave or not.  He’d been saying _I’m brave, I’m brave_ for so many hours, sitting in the dark, alone even though Papa was there with him.

Papa ran too.

**

Three whole families had been slaughtered in their homes and a dozen more people killed as they fought or tried to run.  Every house had been ransacked and burned.  But the rebel soldiers helped bury the dead, and once a council fire had been built and food distributed from the ration packs their rescuers provided, Mrs Ainta was able to marshal a rough-and ready village meeting to discuss what they should do, and where to go. 

A few angry voices cried out for vengeance and the chance to fight, but most of the survivors were of one mind.

“Please will you take us to Linha Bay?” the Mayor requested. “It’s on the coast, one of us can guide you.  It’s our mother colony, most of us have family there.  We’ll try to rebuild here one day, but for now we have to get our children to safety.”

The Sgt nodded.  Mrs Ainta turned back to the gathering, to a debate about how much of value could perhaps be salvaged from the ruined village.

When Coelo looked round for Sgt Erso-Andor again he found her swearing-in the two angriest of the young blades.  She didn’t look particularly happy at getting new recruits.

He’d spent almost two hours hugging his mother non-stop.  He let go now, as the survivors began to gather themselves, separating into teams in response to Mrs Ainta’s plan. 

“Sergeant?”

She turned, to look at him with that kind, sad smile in the firelight.  She’d taken off her gloves, he noticed.  Her wedding band had a white stone in it, like Mama’s and Papa’s.

“Yes?  Coelo, isn’t it?”

She’d remembered his name.  He grinned, because even after all the fear and horror of the day it made him happy to have been noticed.

“Thank you for finding us,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Sergeant?  You said you’d seen a cave like ours before?” He was curious, and a little frightened, because Papa and Mama had said no-one would find them in the cave, but the Sgt had spotted it easily.  So they could have been found by anyone.  They might have all been dead by now, lying on the damp cold stone, in the dark.  Lost forever, with no-one to come for them.

Sgt Erso-Andor sighed again.  “Yeah, I have.”

“Who did you find in it?”

“No-one,” she said slowly. “It was – it was me that was found.  When I was a kid.  No bigger than you.”

“How did you know when to come out?”

“I didn’t.  I wasn’t supposed to come out till one of my parents came and fetched me.  But they – couldn’t.  Someone else – a friend, not a bad man – came and found me.” 

“Oh.” It didn’t sound like a happy story at all, even though it ended with her being rescued.  He said hopefully “I’m glad someone found you.  Thank you for finding us.”

“Welcome,” said the Sgt, with that sad smile again.

“I’m sorry I’m not old enough to enrol too.”

“Enrol?”

“Come and fight with you.  Like Sielva and Lelyo.”

Sgt Erso-Andor’s jaw went tight for a moment. “Don’t be.”

He’d thought she was cross getting only two recruits. “Don’t you want more soldiers?”

“Not kids.”

“But – I can fight –“

She shook her head, with certainty though her expression was kind. “The man who pulled me out of my cave made a soldier of me.  I was eight years old.  My husband, he’s been fighting since he was six.  You’re, what, nine, ten?”

“Nine.”

“Life’s going to be hard for a while, Coelo.  But we’re fighting so that you don’t have to.  Not now, not when you’re nine years old.  I’m glad you get to go with your family.  Go to Linha Bay, grow up, come back one day to rebuild.  The galaxy will need people who know how to do that, when we win.”

“You’re gonna win, aren’t you?”

“Hope so.” A sudden big grin. “You know what they say about hope, right?  _Rebellions are built on hope_.  You’re rebelling just as much, in your way, if you stay alive and don’t give up.  Remember that.  When the Empire says there is no hope and you can’t do anything to stop them, remember; a hopeful heart is a revolutionary act.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A hopeful heart is a revolutionary act.  He liked the sound of that.  And rebellions are built on hope.

Someone called out to the Sgt, and she patted his arm once and then turned away, to head up the slope towards the U-wing.  Coelo followed her with his eyes for a moment, but she just joined one of the other soldiers with the Starbird crest, and climbed into the ship, talking on a small comm. 

When he looked round, his parents were waiting for him by the bonfire. 

He’d nearly lost Mama.  She’d nearly lost him and Papa. 

He forgot about the Sgt, and ran to them with his arms held out.


End file.
